


Immolation

by songofdefiance



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: All the darkness that comes with time loops, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Season/Series 10, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21962443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofdefiance/pseuds/songofdefiance
Summary: There’s an ear-splitting crunch, and the ground shakes beneath Donna’s feet.  The ground shakes, Shaunscreams, and Donna -Donna is staring down at her physics exam.
Relationships: Donna Noble & Bill Potts, Donna Noble/Shaun Temple, Twelfth Doctor & Bill Potts, Twelfth Doctor & Donna Noble
Comments: 12
Kudos: 113
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2019





	Immolation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fandom Trumps Hate 2019, for wambold. I was given a lot of leeway with this, and it turned into... this. Because I can never write something simple when it comes to Doctor Who. 
> 
> Enjoy!

“Hypothetically speaking - time loops are not and never will be naturally occurring phenomena.”

Bill snorts. “What, like plain old time travel is?”

“Ah-ah!” The Doctor says. “For humans, maybe it’s not. Not even for Time Lords, if I’m being honest. But the TARDIS is a living being, and if she is so inclined, she can and will travel through time as well as space. It’s as natural as breathing for her, and because of that, her traveling in and of itself doesn’t damage the space-time continuum.”

“...right,” Bill says slowly. “So, us traveling with her - that does? What does that have to do with time loops?”

The Doctor spins back around to face his chalkboard. The TARDIS makes a low, whirring sound, as though giving her own input in the discussion. Bill leans forward and pats the console, silently thanking her for her contribution. 

“No flirting,” the Doctor says, without turning around.

“I wasn’t flirting!” Bill exclaims, then pauses. “Well, okay, maybe a bit.”

The TARDIS makes another noise, this one sounding suspiciously like laughter. This time the Doctor turns around, pointing an accusing finger at the time rotor. “You - stop it.”

Bill gives the rotor a wink before standing up and approaching the board. “Alright then - tell me about time loops.”

The Doctor, who has already been scribbling furiously with his chalk, starts drawing a diagram beneath what he’s already written. Not that he’s written much. The only words on the board right now are ‘NO SPECIES’.

“The problem,” the Doctor begins, “is that time loops are immensely difficult to manufacture. And I say manufacture because no species exists in the entire universe that can create a time loop without disrupting the natural order. On the rare occasions that time loops are created, it’s to achieve a different result than the initial outcome of an event, or series of events.”

“Why’s it so difficult?” Bill asked. 

The Doctor’s drawn a circle and labeled it ‘Earth’. He jabs it with the chalk. “Imagine that you want to change the outcome of a battle in... I don’t know, World War III.”

“Is that gonna be a thing?”

“Not for another 200 years or so, don’t worry about it.” The Doctor pauses, then lets out a ferocious sneeze. “What’s with all the dust lately, do we need to air out the place? Anyway, one option you have is to simply go back in time and try to change the outcome in your favor. Of course, there’s every chance that the outcome you cause could be just as bad as, or worse than, the original outcome. So what do you do? You could go back and try again, but then you run the risk of paradoxes and crossing over your own time stream.”

“But if you created a time loop,” Bill muses, “you’d get to keep trying again and no one would be the wiser. You wouldn’t have to risk running into past versions of yourself, yeah?”

“Exactly,” the Doctor says. “A much more streamlined solution to the problem. The problem, however, is that when creating a time loop you’re not just traveling  _ through  _ time. You’re controlling it. You have to be manipulating the timestreams of every single thing within the affected area, and that requires the kind of technology that’s outlawed in most civilizations. Even my people have forbidden it.”

“Hold on,” Bill says. “If a time loop causes far fewer problems than just traveling back over and over again, why is the technology outlawed? It sounds less dangerous.”

The Doctor smiles. “You’ve hit the million dollar question, Miss Potts. So!” He draws another circle around the Earth. “Let’s say I have a device that will allow me to isolate a certain segment of the timestreams of everything on Earth. And when I say everything, I mean  _ everything  _ \- not just living beings. I created a time loop around everything - every single atom, every molecule - on the planet for the duration of the battle that I want to change.”

“Okay...”

“Do you see the problem?”

Bill frowns. It seems like the answer is almost too obvious, but... “Well, time would still be passing normally for everything outside the Earth, right?”

“Precisely.” The Doctor gestures. “Earth’s timestreams are like a broken record, but everything outside the Earth continues as normal. Once Earth exits the time loop, three weeks could have passed, and the whole of time will be thrown out of sync. It would, to put it delicately, rip a hole into the universe. It’s one of the few things that time can’t reconcile.”

“So it’s outlawed.”

“So it’s outlawed,” the Doctor echoes in agreement. “Not that that’s stopped some people. There have been a few occasions where time loop technology was used. My people stepped in every time, but there was only so much we could do. In these instances, we would remove the person who’d caused the time loop in the first place, and then allow the time loop to continue. Forever.”

Bill’s jaw drops. “That’s horrible!”

The Doctor shrugs. “Well, they wouldn’t know it was happening. No one knows, except the person who caused the loop and anyone else that they allow to see through it. That’s another thing time loop tech can do - they can allow someone to retain their memories across the loop. And I suppose certain species would be... aware, of what was happening. Not fully, but aware.”

“You mean like you,” Bill deduces.

The Doctor grimaces. “Yes. As far as I know, the only way to create a truly effective time loop without causing damage is if you were somehow able to control the timestream of every single thing in the universe. But there’s no device in existence that has the power.”

“So we could be in a time loop right now, and I’d have no idea?” Bill doesn’t know if she should be horrified or not.

“That’s just it, Bill.” And now the Doctor’s face becomes grave. The kind of grave that Bill has only ever seen when they’re in danger. “I think we are in one.”

* * *

It’s true that Donna doesn’t  _ need  _ to be taking classes. 

She’s got money. She’s got a gorgeous, kind, soft-spoken husband. They’ve got a house now. They’ve agreed on no kids, and it hasn’t strained their marriage in the slightest. Donna doesn’t know how she got lucky enough to meet a bloke who understands that she isn’t the maternal type, and who (thankfully) doesn’t desire fatherhood enough to push the matter. 

What she hasn’t got is satisfaction. 

Everything she does, everywhere she goes - there’s an itch under her skin, the need to be  _ doing _ . The problem is - doing what? She’s felt this way all her life, but the urge has been particularly strong for the last ten or so years. 

Shaun took her spontaneous decision to go back to school in stride. They began to discuss moving away from London as well; Donna grew more and more restless as the years passed, wanting ( _ needing _ ) to get away from the city. They went back and forth a few times, reluctant to really make a decision.

Her granddad’s death was the final nail in that coffin.

Donna stares down at the exam paper, blinking at the calculations scribbled at the bottom. She’s still not sure what spurred her to take a physics class, but something about it clicks for her. She can solve problems that her classmates struggle with in the blink of an eye, without really thinking about it. 

It’s the last question on the test. Donna holds in her grin while she turns in her papers, only punching the air once she’s outside the exam room. If someone had told her that physics would be her best subject, she’d’ve laughed in their face. Now, though? She’s not willing to question her stroke of luck.

Her smile dims as an unbidden question intrudes on her thoughts:  _ what would Gramps say about it? _

He’s proud. Somewhere, he’s proud of her.

Donna steps outside, letting the fresh air distract her. St. Luke’s has a beautiful campus; it’s almost whimsical, and a large part of the reason why Donna chose to study here. The rest of that reason is a mystery to her. She tries not to think about that too much, either.

Campus is almost deserted. Most of the other students are still in their exams. Donna walks slowly, enjoying the rare moment of tranquility. 

Something catches her eye. It’s barely there - only on the edge of her vision - but something about it makes her blood freeze. She stops walking, turning so that she’s really facing the... whatever it is. 

There’s nothing out of the ordinary there. Just a tree, and a fence beyond it.

“You alright?”

Donna jumps, her hand flying to her heart. “Couldn’t step a little louder, could you?” she asks, before she can stop herself.

The young woman in front of her laughs sheepishly. “Sorry. I don’t wear heels or anything. I mean, I  _ could  _ wear heels, if I really wanted to, but they hurt like hell and they’re not really my thing anyway.”

Donna smiles back. “Yeah, not really my thing either.”

“Really though, you alright? You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

Donna opens her mouth to tell the woman that yes, she’s fine, she was just seeing things, but... “I dunno,” she sighs. “For a moment there, I thought I did. Turned out to be my imagination, though. Thanks.”

“Okay,” the woman says, her smile returning full force. “Well, good luck with your exams. If you’ve got any left, I mean.”

“Yeah, you too.”

The woman waves and then continues along the path, heading for one of the faculty buildings. Donna watches her go for a moment, then turns back towards where she thought she saw... whatever it was.

There’s still nothing there.

Donna decides to pass it off as a fluke, and keeps walking.

The rest of the day passes by as it normally does - meaning that Donna is bored out of her skull. The itch is back, even worse than it usually is. Shaun’s still at work, so she tries to settle in to read a book. She’s able to pay attention for all of 15 minutes before she snaps it shut and finds herself outside again.

She circles around the block a few times, trying to walk as slowly as she can. A harassed-looking woman with a stroller shoulders past her at one point, shooting her a dirty look. Donna makes a face at her once her back is turned.

Her wandering leads to her losing track of time and place - before she knows it she’s two kilometers away and Shaun’s phoning to tell her that dinner’s ready. He’s used to it by now, after multiple reassurances from her that it’s not because of their marriage. He understands that marriage isn’t the be-all-end-all of life that it used to be for her.

Donna isn’t sure when it stopped being that. 

She lugs her granddad’s telescope outside once night falls, setting it down gently in the backyard. She seeks out her granddad’s favorite constellations first, unable to stop herself from smiling at the sights. She looks for new things, too - she finds a few airplanes on accident, stumbles across a small cluster of stars in the west. 

Donna’s just about to pack up for the night when something else catches her attention. 

It looks like an orange ball of fire. Which is unusual enough that Donna pauses, because even with the telescope the stars don’t look like that. She backs away from the telescope, squinting up into the sky, and is able to see the same thing with only her eyes. It’s getting larger. Which means it’s getting closer.

‘Course, it could just be a meteorite burning up in the atmosphere, but something like a chill travels up Donna’s spine, and she  _ knows  _ that it’s not that simple.

Abandoning the telescope, Donna hurries back inside, nearly colliding with Shaun.

“I was about to come out to check on you - “ he begins.

“No time,” Donna says. “We’ve gotta get outside, get away from the house. Something’s gonna crash into it.”

She doesn’t know where this certainty comes from. It scares her, more than the whatever-it-is does.

“Breathe, Donna,” Shaun says, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Just, start from the beginning.”

“There’s no  _ time _ !”

For some reason, that word in particular resonates through her skull, and she winces as pain lances through her head.

“Okay, okay,” Shaun says, raising both hands placatingly. “Just, let me go grab - “

“No!” Donna grabs his hand and all but drags him towards the front door. She isn’t sure but she thinks she can hear it now, a roaring above them that Shaun doesn’t seem to notice. His protests are starting to be drowned out.

There’s an ear-splitting crunch, and the ground shakes beneath Donna’s feet. The ground shakes, Shaun  _ screams _ , and Donna -

Donna is staring down at her physics exam.

It’s the last question. The same question she’d been mulling over, about ten hours ago. Except now her calculations aren’t strewn across the bottom of the page. She’s too shocked by what just happened to do much of anything except continue staring at the page, until a few droplets darken the paper and she realizes that she’s crying.

She was  _ dead _ . They were both dead, they had to have been, but -

Feeling like she’s going to vomit, Donna doesn’t bother filling out the last question, knowing that she’ll get a decent enough grade regardless, even if it’s not a perfect one. She all but runs to the exam proctor, having the sense to dash her hand across her eyes before she faces him. The walls are closing in around her, and she can’t get out of the exam hall fast enough.

She doesn’t even make it outdoors before she’s sliding down a wall, a few feet away from the door to the exam room. She sucks in deep breaths, unsure of how long she huddles there, trying to keep her heart from exploding out of her chest.  _ I’m alive _ , she has to keep telling herself.  _ I’m alive _ .

But her heart starts pounding harder.  _ What about Shaun? _

She fumbles for her phone, pulling it out of her bag with shaking hands. Thanking every deity under the sun that he’s on speed dial, she holds her phone up to her ear, trying to stop her hands from shaking.

“Hello?”

Donna isn’t able to stop herself from sobbing with relief at the sound of Shaun’s voice. After her granddad, she’s not sure she can handle another death.

“Donna?” He’s alarmed now, having heard her sob. “Is everything alright? Did something happen with your exam?”

“No,” she chokes out. “No, everything’s fine. The exam was great. I’m just... having a rough day. Dunno why.”

If she’d given it a few years ago, that excuse probably wouldn’t fly, but Donna’s had ‘rough days’ before. Days where she’s held back tears for no reason, feeling wretched, though never to this extent.

“Oh. Okay.” Shaun’s voice becomes gentler, more understanding. “D’you want me to come pick you up from St. Luke’s?”

“Nah, it’s alright,” Donna replies. “I’ll just take a walk around campus for a bit, clear my head. I’ll see you back at home later, alright?”

She can hear the fond smile in his voice. “See you then. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Donna hangs up first, gripping her phone too tightly for a moment while she tries to get herself under control.

“You alright?”

Donna isn’t startled as badly as she was last time, but she still swears. It’s the same young woman from before; the only difference is the change in location. The woman flashes her the same apologetic grin. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I step quietly. Can’t help it. My tutor says I need a bell or something. Really though, you alright?”

“Yeah,” Donna assures her. “Yeah, I’m - it’s been a long day, and I’m... going through some stuff.”

The woman shoves her hands into her jacket pockets. “Wanna talk about it?”

_ Yes _ , Donna screams inwardly, but she knows she’ll probably be carted off to the madhouse if she does. “Not really,” she says. “Not that you - you seem nice, I just - “

“Don’t worry about it,” the woman says, still grinning. “Hope you feel better.”

“Thanks.”

The woman continues walking down the hallway, towards the stairwell. Donna forces herself to get to her feet and exit the building.

Her mind is racing as she walks home. If this is her second chance, then she’s got to milk it for all it’s worth. There’s no other choice. She’s going to have to find some way to get her and Shaun out of the house for the evening. It’s not going to be an easy task, considering that she’s not the most social person and Shaun knows that. If she suggests that they go get drinks, he’s going to think it’s weird.

Claim that she needs him to help her study at the library? That might work if she didn’t just finish her last exam. 

She wracks her brain, trying to think of a concert or a party or something that she can use, when the solution hits her. It’s so simple, but Shaun won’t even think to question it.

Donna grins, her steps feeling lighter than they have in a long time.

* * *

Alright,” Shaun says, laughing. “But let’s try and be home by midnight, yeah?”

“Yes, alright,” Donna replies, pretending to huff. “I just need to get out of Exeter for a few hours, yeah? See what I can see with Granddad’s telescope. Been a while since I had a proper look at the sky. Light pollution and all that.”

“Didn’t you live in the middle of London before?” Shaun teases gently. 

Donna rolls her eyes.

By the time the sun sets, they’re out on the road with the telescope, a couple of sandwiches, and several blankets. Donna feels like she can finally breathe, now that she’s secured their survival. She’s done it. She’s saved them both.

They stop next to a deserted hill, where Donna will go every so often when she wants to get away from Exeter. For once she’s grateful for her wanderlust habits, all but skipping up the hillside with her telescope cradled in her hands. Her good mood seems to be catching; Shaun’s whistling as he follows her.

It’s a beautiful night. Perfectly clear skies, no wind, chilly but not bitingly cold. Donna settles in with her telescope, happy that she can put the whole incident behind her (even if it probably means that their house is going to be destroyed). When 10 o’clock rolls around she isn’t even able to spot the orange blur in the sky, and another hour passes before they decide to pack up and head back.

They’re still kilometers away when Donna sees the smoke, and her heart sinks.

“What the - ?” Shaun asks.

They’re only able to get with half a kilometer of their house before they find police barricades in the way. Donna stares in horror at the scene in the distance: more houses flattened than she can count, fire and sirens everywhere. She can see people moving around, some supporting others.

“Oh god,” whispers Shaun. “Leslie and Katie, Jonathan and his kids - “

Donna claps a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. How could she think - why had she assumed - ?

Shaun’s face is frozen, but he manages to say, “We should - we should g-get a hotel for the night, somewhere.” He draws in a shaky breath. “We can c-call whoever it is we need to call in the morning.”

Donna nods in wordless agreement.

It takes another half an hour, but they eventually find a hotel. Once they have their room, Donna sits on the edge of the bed and stares out the window; she can still see an orange glow in the distance. Somehow this is worse than before, worse than the horrible noise and Shaun’s screams. All she can think of is what she could have done instead. What she  _ should  _ have done.

Shaun eventually emerges, from the bathroom, his hair wet. They wordlessly climb into bed, clinging to each other in the silence.  _ This is worse,  _ Donna is thinking, but at least Shaun is still here with her.

At around 1 AM, she falls asleep. The next thing she knows, she’s staring down at the last question on her physics exam again. 

Donna stares down at the question, once again having difficulty comprehending what she’s seeing. This time she answers the question, her movements robotic. It’s like there’s white noise going through her mind, preventing her from pulling herself together. She’s handed in her exam and is already halfway across campus before she’s really able to  _ think  _ again.

She passes the woman again. This time, they don’t speak to each other. Donna doesn’t even really notice her.

She finally stops, clenching her fists. Last time, she saved Shaun, but so many other people died. She’s not going to make that mistake this time. 

This time, she’ll get it right.

* * *

She doesn’t get it right.

Her first attempt to warn emergency personnel is met with a patronizing speech from the operator, who then hangs up when Donna starts shouting at her. She goes home, doesn’t touch her dinner, and ignores both Shaun’s concern and the stone that seems to be sitting in her stomach. It’s almost a relief when the world ignites around her, and she’s thrown back into her exam.

In her second, she’s calmer when she talks on the phone with the operator. It seems to be going well, until she’s told that they will simply ‘monitor the skies’. Donna knows that it isn’t going to be enough, and she’s proven right when she dies again, starting at her physics exam once more.

The third time, she tries going door-to-door. She should’ve guessed how well  _ that  _ would go.

And again, and again, and again. The trouble is, no one wants to listen to her. She knows she sounds mad, rambling about things falling from the sky, but is it too much to ask for at least one person to take her seriously?

Then there’s the question of why she can’t seem to die in the first place.

The only time she didn’t actually die was the second time, when she and Shaun managed to escape the destruction. But she still ended up back where she started, some time after falling asleep. During one of the later loops, she camps out in an empty classroom on St. Luke’s campus, not answering her phone and staring at its screen, watching the minutes go by. It reaches 3:02 AM before she’s sent back to the physics exam.

It occurs to her, after that loop, that dying is essentially a shortcut to the next loop. It’s a disturbing thought, and she puts it out of her mind immediately.

Donna has a few theories about why she keeps going back to the physics exam, though she has no way of really knowing why. Maybe this is what happens to everyone who dies an unnatural death - they keep going through it again and again until they can prevent it. She quickly discards that theory. The loops would’ve ended as soon as she saved her own life from the disaster.

She reluctantly acknowledges that divine intervention is a possibility, but isn’t willing to entertain that idea for very long.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s happening, and all she can do is assume that it’s down to her to save everyone who dies in the impact. Mostly because she doesn’t know what else to do.

She's trying to call emergency services again, and is quickly losing her composure to frustration again. It's the same operator as her first loop, and the woman just doesn't take her seriously.

“Look I don't  _ know _ what it is,” she snaps. “Could just be a big asteroid, or something, or it could be a big spaceship -”

“Spaceship?” The woman's voice has sharpened; gone is the bored, dismissive tone. “You think it's a spaceship?”

Donna has no idea why that would be the part of her tirade that matters to the operator, but she's not about to question it if this is what finally gets results. “Yeah, it looks like one.”

“Hold a moment, please.”

Donna opens her mouth, then closes it and scowls when a jingle comes through the speaker. She doesn't know how long she sits there, waiting, feeling like time is being wasted with each second that passes. The maddening part is that she can feel each minute as it races by, like her body has internalized a grandfather clock.

Finally the music cuts off, and another woman starts speaking.

“Please state your name and address, we'll be there as soon as possible.”

Donna nearly collapses in relief. “Thank god. Okay, it's Donna, Donna Noble, d'you need me to spell it for you? My address is -”

“Wait a minute,” the woman interrupts. If Donna didn't know any better, she'd almost say that she sounds... afraid? “You said your name was Donna Noble?”

“Did I stutter?”

“N-no, ma'am.” The woman is definitely nervous. “I'm very sorry, but we won't be able to assist you today.

“Hey, wait,  _ no _ you -”

The woman hangs up. 

“Arse,” Donna hisses, and throws her phone at the wall.

Another failure. And why would her name, of all things, throw the woman off? 

Donna resigns herself to sitting in her living room, with a glass of wine in her hand, when the crash happens once again. Shaun isn't even in the same room as her. She doesn't hear him.

Twenty loops in, and she's  _ tired _ . She's out of ideas. She doesn't bother to finish her exam, just walks out of the room. She lets her feet carry her listlessly across campus. 

“You alright?”

Donna blinks. She'd seen the young woman coming towards her, but she didn't think that she would say anything this time. She doesn't always.

“No,” she finally answers. “No, I'm not.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Ordinarily, Donna would have an immediate answer to that. Said immediate answer would almost always be “no”. This time, however, she needs to think about it, because it might be a relief to tell someone else about this. 

Then she remembers that anyone who she tells is going to think she’s completely bonkers.

“Nah,” she answers, smiling weakly. “I’ll be alright. Thanks though.”

She just hopes that those words will turn out to be true.

* * *

“What else can you remember?” The Doctor presses. “Anything unusual?”

Bill shoots him an unimpressed look. “You realize this is a college campus, yeah?”

“You  _ know  _ what I mean,” the Doctor says, rolling his eyes. “The way you felt after Heather showed you the puddle. Has anything like that happened to you today? You have sharp instincts Bill. Even humans are aware that something like a time loop is happening. They’ll know, and that feeling of wrongness will be apparent. You’ll know.”

Bill frowns. ‘Ordinary’ days are few and far between when the Doctor is involved, but now that he mentions it...

“I did see someone today,” she admits. “A woman, walking across campus. Thought it was odd, because most of the exams were still in session. And just... I dunno why, but the  _ look  _ on her face - “

She has to pause for a moment, because she doesn’t know what words to use.

“Bingo,” the Doctor says. “So, something to do with this woman, then. Have you ever seen her before?”

Bill shrugs. “Never seen her in the cafeteria, before, and she’s a bit old to be a typical student. Probably lives off-campus, closer to Exeter proper. Maybe she just had a really bad exam, or something. I’ve never seen someone look so...  _ defeated _ , before.”

The Doctor spins around and starts scribbling furiously on the chalkboard. “What do you remember about her?” he asks. “Details. Appearance. Voice, if you spoke to her. Anything.”

“Erm... red hair? Kind of hard to miss that part. I think she was in her late thirties, early forties, maybe? She was definitely a Londoner, if the accent was anything to go by. I didn’t get anything else - not her name, nothing. She didn’t want to talk about whatever was bothering her.”

Bill blinks, then without really thinking about it, adds, “She looked like she saw a ghost.”

Then she blinks again, because - well, there was no point in her encounter with the woman when the woman looked like she’d seen a ghost. Where did that come from?

The Doctor has stopped writing on the chalkboard, and is staring at her. 

“Say that again?” he asks.

Bill shakes herself. “Nothing, I dunno why I said that.”

“Yes you do,” he persists. “Think. You’re a time traveller, Bill. As such, your awareness of time - especially when time is wrong - is much stronger than most humans.”

Bill gapes at him. “Are you saying that I’m remembering one of the previous loops?”

“Not quite remembering,” he hedges. “More like - the other loops are echoing back to you. Just barely. The tiniest flicker. An impression you got. It probably feels like a dream. Even now, you can’t recall exactly what prompted you to say that, can you?”

Bill shakes her head.

“So,” the Doctor says, “whatever is happening, we can be sure that this woman is at the center of it. Because looking like she’s seen a ghost, and then looking utterly defeated - that’s a pretty drastic change.”

“So what do we do?”

The Doctor grimaces. “We wait,” he replies. “And we hope that enough of  _ this  _ conversation echoes back to you in the next loop that you’ll be able to find out more about her.”

* * *

Her granddad’s grave is in a cemetery back in London. 

Donna would know. It’s one of the reasons she moved away.

She makes do with talking to the stars, when no one else is around. She knows that if he could go anywhere, that’s where he’d be - up there, in the sky, where she can wave hello to him whenever she likes. She talks about all the little things in her life, like the places Shaun takes her on dates, or how her schoolwork is going, or the way she sometimes feels like climbing out of her skin.

This time, she talks about one very big thing.

“Wish you were here,” she whispers, staring up at the sky. “Of everyone I know, you’d be the one to believe me, yeah?”

The deep ache in her gut is something she’s used to: a mixture of guilt and regret and that chasm that comes from just  _ missing  _ him. There are voicemail messages from her mum that she’s never had the heart to erase. There’s the telescope that she takes out when she wants to pretend that she’s just stargazing, when she’s really looking for him. There’s his hat that she sometimes sobs into, when she’s sure she’s alone and when it feels like she can let some of that ache out.

All of these things are his grave, to her. She doesn’t think that they’ll ever stop being that.

“What do I do?” she whispers. “What am I supposed to  _ do _ ?”

_ Do your best, Donna _ , he might’ve answered, once.  _ That’s more than enough _ .

Except it doesn’t seem to be, this time. She buries her forehead in her knees and takes a few shuddering breaths. It’s cold outside, and dark, and she can already hear the faint roar of their doom above them.

When she finds herself back in the physics exam, she’s welcomed by a splitting headache. It’s not the first she’s ever had. They come and go, for no reason that she’s ever been able to discern. It’s the first time she’s gotten one since the loops started, though, and she scowls down at her test, wondering why her damn head has decided to bother her now, of all times.

Quickly she scribbles down her last answer, hurrying out of the room so that she can pop a couple of the aspirin she keeps in her purse. She doesn’t even go looking for a drinking fountain, swallowing the pills dry and grimacing as they struggle down her throat.

Her head throbs. Donna curses it quietly. As she’s heading out the door of the building, she collides with someone.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, rubbing at her temple. 

She means to keep moving, but the person asks, “You okay?”

Donna turns around. It’s the young woman, just as it always is. She’s hovering in the door, holding it open, staring at Donna with concern. If Donna didn’t feel like someone was trying to hammer nails into her skull, she might’ve marveled at how this woman has unfailingly shown her kindness in every loop. 

“Yeah, just my head,” Donna says.

The woman gestures to her shoulder bag. “I’ve got a couple paracetamol, if you want.”

“No, thanks,” Donna answers, giving her a strained smile. She turns back around, hoping to make her getaway with as much of her dignity intact as possible, but the woman speaks again, stopping her.

“What’s your name?”

Donna scowls, and the woman immediately starts babbling. “Sorry, I just - had like, this  _ major  _ case of deja-vu just now. Like I’ve had this conversation before, you know? So I was wondering if I’d met you before and forgotten - though to be honest, you don’t really seem all that forgettable.”

Donna feels her scowl slipping off her face as the woman’s words register.  _ Like I’ve had this conversation before. _

“It’s Donna,” she answers, almost without thinking about it. “Donna Noble.”

The woman shakes her head. “Sorry, don’t recognize it. Uh, but fair’s fair - I’m Bill Potts.”

Her headache is beginning to recede, so Donna manages a real smile, this time. “Nice to meet you, Bill.”

“Yeah, you too.” Bill beams at her. “I’ll let you get going - hope your headache clears up.”

“Thanks.”

Donna heads straight home after that. The headache doesn’t go away completely, but it does subside somewhat. She orders takeout from the local Greek place so that Shaun won’t have to cook tonight, and because she feels like eating a greasy gyro instead of something healthier. 

She's halfway through the chips that came with it when she starts to hear a weird noise. It sounds a bit like an elephant repeatedly trumpeting. Wondering if she's now going to have to deal with an escaped zoo animal in addition to a crashing spaceship, Donna puts her chips on the end table and goes to the window, shoving the curtain aside.

There aren't many things in the world that can make Donna gape like a fish out of water. Ordinarily, a police telephone box appearing out of nowhere on her front lawn would be one of them. But Donna doesn’t gape like a fish - instead, she just shoves the curtain back into place and thinks dismissively  _ Oh, it’s just the Doctor. _

Then her head explodes.

* * *

The worst thing about it is that her skinny, somewhat idiotic best friend was right all along. 

She dies. She thinks she’s been dying for about... 15 loops now? Since her memories aren’t taken away with each loop, she still remembers what appeared on her front lawn, ergo she still remembers everything to do with the Doctor, ergo she begins each loop, dies within minutes, and then repeats the process. 

She only gets a minute each time to run through possible solutions before the pain becomes too much. Chameleon arch? No, she’d still have the time loop to deal with, and she’d rather be dying over and over again than lose her memories a second time. Converting herself biologically to a Time Lord isn’t possible either. She needs to find some kind of balance - maybe so that the formulas and equations and theories running through her head only number in the millions instead of the trillions. 

Donna’s always vaguely aware that she’s surrounded by concerned classmates each time, all of whom are calling the paramedics or checking her vitals or - or - or -

Something in her cracks, and she dies again.

Only to find herself back in her seat, with her headache already clawing at the insides of her skull. Donna grits her teeth and doesn’t scream again. 

No matter how brilliant she might be now that she has her memories, she keeps arriving at the same conclusion: she has exactly one minute per loop to figure out how to stop the loop, and once that happens, she’ll die. Permanently this time. 

Decision made, Donna grits her teeth and stands, ignoring the exam proctor calling out in concern. She’s going to need the TARDIS for this, and for that she’s going to need the Doctor. Her mind has already connected the dots on where he must be. 

_ Bill  _ to “ _ feels like I’ve had this conversation before _ ” to  _ TARDIS  _ to  _ Doctor _ . Donna silently thanks the woman who has been kind enough to check on her during every single loop. Even if Bill didn’t know it.

It takes her another thirty loops to figure out where his office is within the minute that she has per loop. It takes another ten times to actually get there before the pain paralyzes her. She notices that her tolerance time extends to 90 seconds, and starts to wonder. 

The first thing she says to him - after years, after he’d wiped her memory and then left her a lotto ticket and never looked back - is, “Scottish? When did you go Scottish?”

And then she dies again. 

The second time she makes it there, she’s so out of breath that she can’t speak. Instead she weakly punches him, again and again, while he pleads with her to just  _ hold on _ , and it sounds so strange, coming out of this old man’s mouth - how does he still sound exactly like Skinny?

She wakes up in the next loop and realizes that they were both crying. 

It ends up being Bill who makes a real difference. 

Bill all but slams into her while she’s running for the Doctor’s office, for the 274th time. Donna can barely remember to breathe over the noise in her brain, and then Bill is dragging her through the halls, yelling for the Doctor. Donna is counting the seconds - 32 until she dies again. At the rate she’s going, it’s probably not enough time for the Doctor to come up with some miraculous way to keep her from dying.

Bill is alternating between shouting for help and talking more quietly to Donna. “I sort of - it’s vague but I  _ think  _ I remember this - if only we could just slow down what’s happening to you - “

It hits Donna then. Not exactly what Bill said, but... it’s crazy enough that it might work. 

Ten seconds. Nine.

Donna tugs on Bill’s arm, forcing her to look at her. Bill does, looking both desperate and curious at the same time (no wonder the Doctor picked her).

“You ever seen Inception?” Donna asks. 

Then she dies again.

This time, Donna figures out the exact pace she needs to go at. Not too fast, so that her death isn’t accelerated, but also not too slow, so that she doesn’t die before making it to the Doctor’s office. She bursts in with about 15 seconds to live.

The Doctor doesn’t even manage to get a word out - he’s too busy gaping like a fish. Donna marches over to him, says, “This might hurt,” and then headbutts him.

And -

* * *

\- there’s silence.

“What did you do?” the Doctor asks. “We’re not in my office, though I’ll admit it’s a very convincing recreation - “

Donna’s a bit offended that he figured it out this quickly. “How d’you know? We might be in your office, still.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Wrong people in the photographs,” he says, gesturing to the three frames that are clustered together on his desk. Donna glances at them and sees Rose, Martha, and herself. She wonders who occupies them in real life, and then she wonders how long it’s been since he last saw her. 

Donna has a lot of questions in that line of thinking, but no time with which to ask them. She does the calculations. She’s bought herself three minutes and 46 seconds.

“How long do you have until you die?” the Doctor asks. 

“Three minutes and 43 seconds,” Donna says. “Well, for us, anyway. Not important right now. I’ll be back as soon as the loop resets.”

The headache is blessedly muted here, though she suspects it will escalate again near the end of her time limit.

“What do you already know about the time loop?” she asks. She doesn’t bother to ask if he does know about it. He’s a Time Lord. He would’ve sensed it by now.

“Just that it’s happening, and that you’re involved,” he answered. Straight to the point. Bit different from Skinny. 

“Well alright,” Donna says. “Then here’s what I know: this is my 414th run of the loop. I’m the only person who seems to be able to retain their memories across the loops. Every time, no matter what I do, some kind of projectile - a massive spaceship or something - crashes into the neighborhood where I live, killing hundreds of people. And then the loop resets. You’ve got until 3:02 AM before it resets.”

The Doctor nods. “I’ll figure it out. Stop the spaceship from crashing, stop the time loop - all in a day’s work. But you - “

Donna shrugs. “I won’t survive the loop break.”

“No.” Now he looks like Skinny, pacing around his “office”, massaging his temples. “No,” he says, more loudly, jabbing his finger in her direction. “I will  _ not  _ lose you again.”

“You’re gonna have to!” snaps Donna. She winces as her head twinges, but that’s not about to stop her. “I may only survive a minute in each loop, but it was long enough for me to figure out what happens to planet if you just - just leave it. If you think about letting these people repeat the same day for the rest of the universe’s existence, I’ll bloody kill you and then do it myself.”

“Then do that!” the Doctor yells back, all fire where his predecessor might have wilted. “Find a way to make it stop and make sure you survive along the way, because if I have to watch you die knowing that I could’ve used these loops to find a way to save you I’ll bloody kill  _ you  _ for dying on me!”

Donna lets out a mean laugh. “I’d like to see you try!”

And just to spite him, she cuts off the dream-state. 

That turns out to be a mistake. She spends the next several loops sobbing in front of her classmates because she made herself so bloody miserable, and her anger is almost as paralyzing as the pain. Her hands are shaking each time the loop resets, because he  _ still  _ doesn’t seem to understand what he put her through - the violation she felt at having her memories ripped away from her. She doesn’t know if she can go into his office again without shaking him, screaming at him to get it through his thick skull that she would rather  _ die  _ than go back to the way things were.

Eventually, though she forces herself to go back. She’s still angry. She doesn’t think she’ll ever not be angry. But she goes back, because she can’t do this without him.

This time, she pleads. She begs him to find a way to fix it, to find a way to put a stop to the time loop. He shakes his head for a second time, and Donna punches him in the shoulder repeatedly, not letting herself cry in front of him.

“No,” he says out loud. “Not without making sure you survive first.”

“You  _ twat  _ \- “

“ _ Without _ erasing your memories.”

Donna freezes, unsure if she’s heard correctly. Before she can even try to answer, she’s staring down at her exam paper yet again.

This time, she all but sprints back to his office. This time, she’s feeling a strange mix of hope and dread, her heart thudding in her chest for reasons other than the cardio she’s getting. She gets there, and she doesn’t so much as bang their heads together as she does tap her forehead against his.

“Did you mean it?” she asks him, once the pain is muted enough. 

The Doctor stares at her. She’s never seen that much anguish and joy on one face before. She wishes he’d stop looking at her like that, especially with a face so much older. 

“Well my answer would depend on if I could remember whatever it was I said,” he answered. 

“Are you going to try to save my life without erasing my memories?” she asks. 

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“Why?”

“Is this really the time for -”

“ _ Why _ ?” she asks, more harshly. 

He stares at her for a moment, then looks down at his “desk”. If this were Skinny, he would probably be fiddling with something on the console. Donna realizes that she’s going to have to learn a whole new set of tells for this Doctor, but quickly brushes that worry aside. She’s not going to be distracted while she waits for his answer.

“I just -” he cuts himself off before he can finish the sentence, then gestures helplessly at himself. There’s another pained look on his face, one that Donna somehow knows doesn’t have anything to do with her, this time. For all of her newly acquired deductive reasoning, however, she can’t parse out what he’s trying to say. 

“You just what?” she prompts.

The Doctor lets out a sigh. “What happened to you - what I did to you - was wrong,” he says, looking her right in the eye. “And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else I cared about.”

Donna isn’t sure if that’s what she needs to hear or not. She doesn’t feel any better about all this. She doesn’t feel any worse either, though. She knows that that’s probably the best she’s going to get, at least until they’ve figured this whole thing out. 

“Alright,” she whispers. 

“So,” the Doctor says, clapping his hands together. “I assume you’ve told me everything you know in a previous loop? You’d better tell me again, because I don’t remember any of it.”

Donna gives him a succinct summary of what she knows, the analytical, Time Lord side of her mind taking over as the Doctor immediately starts firing ideas at her. She’s so absorbed in debating the merits of different actions to take that she almost doesn’t notice when the pain begins to creep back in.

Almost.

“I’m gonna die in thirty seconds,” Donna says, matter-of-factly.

“Okay,” the Doctor says, cutting off his own tirade about temporal physics and time loop displacement dispersal techniques. “Okay. I think the first priority should be getting you stabilized, somehow. Even if I do try something to solve the mystery of the time loop, or the ship that’s crashing into your neighborhood, I’m not going to remember what I did during the next loop. You will.”

“You have some residual memories,” Donna points out.

The Doctor sighs. “Not enough to be useful.”

“We didn’t even discuss my physiology!” Donna snaps, her temper at the same rate as her pain. “We got straight into time loop theory -”

“Well, it is rather exciting.”

“Alright, well, guess I’ll know where to pick up next time, flyboy!”

“Oi!”

That’s the last thing she hears before the pain takes over and she wakes up in front of her physics exam again. Another loop goes by, during which she has a hellish time getting the Doctor to change topics. He steamrolls over her interjections, lost in the complexities of his own thought process. It’s infuriating - he’s clearly forgotten that even dying, her mind is equal to his.

“Will you just shut up?” she finally yells, slamming a hand on his desk. She adds to the effect by having all the glass in the room shatter - the window, the picture frames on his desk. 

The Doctor doesn’t jump, but he does finally quiet down.

Donna cringes internally at how selfish she’s about to sound, but she goes ahead anyway. “We’re not going to get very far if I keep dying one minute into each loop.”

Inwardly, she bucks instinctively against the idea that she’s highest on their priority list. Maybe she’d be more willing to go along with this if she hadn’t already experienced death so many times. But she knows that he’s going to need her to puzzle the rest of this out, and even if he didn’t need her, he would refuse to do anything about either the loop itself or the spaceship crashing into Donna’s neighborhood until he had a way to guarantee that she would be alive.

“Right,” he responds, more to himself than to her. His eyes snap up to meet hers, and she realizes that they’re the same - a blue-gray rather than the brown she knows, but with the same turmoil inside. 

“Right he says again, beginning to pace in the opposite direction he’d been pacing before. “When the metacrisis was first created, you should have died immediately, but you survived. I don’t imagine that my human self would’ve been too thrilled to see your dead body next to his -”

“Doctor,” Donna snaps.

“Sorry, what was I saying? Right! So the question is, why didn’t you die right away? Awfully convenient, wasn’t it, that you lasted long enough to defeat Davros - did you know he’s not actually dead? Well, he might be now, but that’s beside the point - how did you last that long?”

Donna’s about to throw her hands up, wondering if his tangents are some kind of sick self-flagellation that he inflicts on himself, when the answer hits her like a bolt of lightning.

Her eyes meet the Doctor’s. “Adrenaline,” they both say.

The Doctor is pacing faster now. Donna’s headache is starting to worsen. 

“Time Lords don’t have adrenaline,” he says. “It’s not a part of our natural defense mechanisms. We have something similar, but the chemical that’s produced by human systems is deadly to us - one little bit of it would probably kill me in seconds. But -”

“- when I got hit with the Metacrisis,” Donna continues, “my body was already flooded with it. We were so busy trying to find Earth, and stop the Daleks, and I was about as far away from calm as I could possibly be. So when I first woke up, the chemical hadn’t dissipated yet, and -”

“ - it wouldn’t have disappeared all that quickly, since you were in a dangerous situation,” the Doctor finishes, beaming at her. “I can synthesize a shot of adrenaline in the TARDIS’s medical bay, and boom - no more dying!”

Donna lets out a long breath. Her head is throbbing now; they’re almost out of time. “So I just need to get here quick enough,” she says. 

The Doctor frowns. “And you’ll have to convey exactly what we’ve just talked about in very few words.”

Donna nods. She felt queasy just thinking about it - or maybe that was her headache. “30 seconds,” she said faintly.

“Give me another headbutt when you get here. Information transfer. It’ll be instantaneous.”

“Got it.”

“Donna?” she can barely see through the haze of pain, now, but she manages to look at him anyway. “You can do this. I know you. I know you can do this.”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, falling to her knees, one hand grabbing desperately for something to keep her upright. “I know that too.”

Right before she wakes up in her exam, she feels his hand grab hers.

* * *

“I feel like I’m gonna climb the bloody walls!”

Bill eyes Donna a bit nervously. Donna hasn’t stopped her agitated pacing since she entered the TARDIS. Her hands are shaking. She keeps on running her hand through her hair, or cracking her knuckles, or shaking out her hands like she’s trying to rid herself of something. At one point she started chewing on her nails, but stopped when she noticed that Bill noticed.

Finally, Donna rounds on the Doctor, who seems to be doing his best to not look at either her or Bill. 

“How much adrenaline did you give me?” she demands. 

“The standard amount,” the Doctor replies. He’s facing his blackboard. “For humans in fight-or-flight situations, anyway.”

Donna lets out a noise that sounds like a growl.

Bill is sitting in the only chair in the console room, watching the scene unfold in front of her. Donna has been nothing but kind to Bill, but there’s a bitter edge to her interactions with the Doctor, tinged with sadness and longing. For the first time since Bill has known him, the Doctor is easy to read. He can’t even look at Donna, and that says everything.

_ What happened? _ she wants to ask, but that’s a can of worms that she knows better than to open.

“How soon until you need another injection?” the Doctor asks suddenly.

Donna pauses in her pacing. Bill wonders if she hears the same thing in the Doctor’s voice that she does: uncharacteristic uncertainty. She wonders if they’ve already had this same conversation, with Donna being the only one of the three of them who remembers. She wonders sometimes, when she’s looking at Donna - trembling and unable to stop moving, and still in pain - if she’s seeing her own future.

“Two hours, 43 minutes, seven seconds,” Donna says. She rattles off the numbers like it’s nothing.

“Less time than I’d hoped.”

They’re still not looking at each other. Bill finds herself fidgeting with her bag’s strap. The longer she’s here, the less she wants to get involved in whatever personal issues are between them, but she’s quickly realizing that nothing is going to get done so long as they refuse eye contact with each other.

“So!” she says, jumping up from her seat and clapping her hands together. Both Donna and the Doctor jump, as though they’d forgotten she was there. “What’s next on the list? Saving Donna permanently, yeah?”

They both stare at her like she’s got antlers growing out of her head. Bill does her best to ignore this and walks over to the blackboard, all but shoving the Doctor to the side. He doesn’t even protest, even when she talks the piece of chalk out of his hand and starts to draw on the board.

Even as she writes the word ‘adrenaline’ on the board, there’s a tiny bit of resentment in her - that she has to be the one to push forward, that neither of them seem able to do that.

“So why does Donna’s adrenaline keep her from dying?” she asks. 

There’s a moment of silence, during which she glances back and forth between them. Finally, Donna says, “It sort of... dampens the Time Lord systems in me. As far as I know, the reason I keep dying is because the Time Lord part becomes dominant and shuts down my adrenal gland completely. No more adrenaline, no more Donna.”

“Okay, then.” Bill writes ‘adrenal gland’ over on the left, underneath the word adrenaline. “So... if we were somehow able to keep the gland active, Donna would be fine?”

This time it’s the Doctor who answers, shaking his head. “No, she’d still be in excruciating pain. The Time Lord part of her would constantly be fighting for dominance. She’d barely be able to sleep, let alone function.”

Bill nods, then gives Donna a pointed look. “Doesn’t seem like you’d be happy having adrenaline shots for the rest of your life.”

“I think I’d be committed,” Donna mutters. “I’m losing my bloody mind.”

Bill isn’t sure if it’s something she said, or if it’s something that Donna said, but the Doctor finally seems to come to life. He snatches the chalk back from her, then spins around to point at Donna. “But it’s not just tied to your adrenaline levels. It’s also tied to your memory centers. The part of you that is Time Lord is dependent on your mind knowing that you are part Time Lord.”

Donna frowns, sitting up. “Paradox.”

“Exactly.”

Bill takes a few steps back, allowing herself a small smile.

* * *

“Thank you,” Donna says.

She and Bill are walking through the campus together, taking a much-needed break after nearly four hours of theorizing. She likes Bill, a lot; she’s able to see connections that Donna and the Doctor miss, she’s funny, and she’s kind. So, so kind. Donna feels like she doesn’t deserve it. 

“What for?” Bill asks.

Donna shoots her a disbelieving look, but she catches the smirk on Bill’s face. She rolls her eyes and nudges her with her elbow. “You know what.”

“Sometimes he just needs a nudge,” Bill replies, her smirk turning into a full-blown smile. “You know him. If he’s not the center of attention for long enough...”

Donna laughs. 

Her headache is starting to return - the second dose of adrenaline is finally starting to wear off, hence her more mellow mood. She figures that this is about as good as it’s going to get. It’s easier for her to distract herself from the headache than it is from the shaking and the constant need to move around.

Donna estimates about ten minutes before she has to go back to the TARDIS for another adrenaline shot. To her horror, she finds herself tearing up at the thought. 

“Donna?” Bill asks. Her voice is quiet. 

_ Somehow this is worse than all the dying,  _ Donna doesn’t say. She’s exhausted, and it’s only been a couple loops since she and the Doctor hit upon their temporary solution to her condition. The repeated adrenaline shots are wreaking havoc with her mental state, and it’s going to carry over through the loops. It’s not a sustainable fix, and they all know it.

Including Bill, who’s now watching her carefully.

“Do you want some privacy?” Bill asks. “Before we head back?”

Donna shakes her head. She’s spent too many loops feeling completely alone to want some kind of privacy now. 

When she steps into the TARDIS for another adrenaline shot, she’s managed to lock away her reservations and her exhaustion. One look at the Doctor’s face - still so full of compassion, still so  _ sad  _ \- is nearly enough to break her open again.

* * *

Ten loops later, Donna is sitting in the doors of the TARDIS, which is hanging over Exeter. The sun has long since set, and she watches almost dispassionately as the burning UFO - it’s definitely a spaceship, she can tell from this angle - descends upon her home. She tries not to think of Shaun down there, contending with its approach alone. She tries not to think about any of it, aside from the problem in front of her. 

She hears footsteps behind her.

“We’ll have to intercept it before it hits the atmosphere,” Donna says. She hates how much her voice shakes, at odds with the fragile equilibrium she’s managed to maintain inwardly. “We can tow it away and probably save whoever’s on board without too much trouble.”

The Doctor doesn’t answer. He nudges her to the side, then swings his legs over the edge to sit next to her. Donna doesn’t stop him from grabbing her hand in one of his weathered ones. She doesn’t want to look at him, but she keeps doing it anyway, searching his blue-gray eyes for a sign of the man she knows. 

“You’re crying,” he observes. 

Donna blinks, then puts her hand up to her face. It comes away wet. 

Somehow, she manages a laugh. “Think I’m gonna need about a thousand years of therapy, when this is over. If this is over.”

The Doctor doesn’t answer. They both know that she’ll be hard-pressed to find a therapist who won’t have her committed.

After a long silence, he says, “I’m sorry about Wilf.”

It’s not what she’s expecting him to say. Not at all. She’s not surprised that he knows; she realizes now that the Doctor grew close to Wilf after giving her amnesia. Part of her hates him for that - that, knowing what became of her, he would dare to go near her grandpa. The other part appreciates what she now knows he did for him: the Doctor gave him the company of someone who understood.

“I miss him,” she says. “He’d know what to say. What to do.”

“He would,” the Doctor agrees. 

Below them, the ship impacts. Donna closes her eyes, unable to watch.

* * *

It’s Bill who eventually comes up with the solution to Donna’s health, and it’s Bill who suggests that they bring Shaun on board for it.

“The Time Lord part takes over, and it kills her,” Bill says quietly, facing both of them. She doesn’t make eye contact with the Doctor. “If we give her human side enough of a boost - repeated stimulation of her adrenal gland, and other organs that produce chemicals unique to humans - her human side would win, and she’d probably survive.”

“‘Probably’?” the Doctor asks. 

“That’s what I said.”

“And how do you know that?”

Bill purses her lips. Says nothing.

“Bill, tell me you didn’t.”

“I didn’t know what else to do!” Bill snaps. 

“You can’t trust her!”

“I know that!” Bill fires back. “But when I told her what had happened, she said, and I quote: ‘Yes, it would probably be crueler if she lives through this, wouldn’t it?’”

The Doctor presses the heels of his hands over his eyes and takes a shuddering breath. Donna has no idea who they’re talking about, but it’s obviously been a point of contention between the two of them. It’s strange to realize that they must be having conversations about her behind her back, but by now, Donna’s finding it difficult to care. 

The Doctor lets out a bitter laugh. “I guess you can always trust her to want to cause suffering.”

“Doctor.”

Bill’s quiet reproach makes him glare, but Bill doesn’t back down. She’s a force of nature all on her own, with her hands planted on her hips. She looks furious, and Donna starts to wonder just how much of this Bill really remembers. 

_ No more _ , she thinks distantly. This has to end now. She’s not letting Bill get dragged down with her.

“Let’s do it then,” she says. She gets up from her seat on the console room stairs and gestures for the Doctor to precede her to the TARDIS medbay. 

The Doctor looks at the hallway she’s directing her to, then back at her. “What -  _ now _ ?”

“Yes,  _ now _ ,” Donna snaps. “I want this over, Doctor.”

“We should get your husband, first,” Bill says.

Donna feels those words like a punch to her gut. It’s the last thing she wants. The Time Lord part of her knows that this procedure is going to be anything but pretty, and she doesn’t want him to see her like this. She doesn’t want to explain to him that she’s found the part of herself that’s been missing all these years.

And it’s ugly.

But Donna finds herself nodding anyway, going over to the console and directing the TARDIS almost as an afterthought. She lands her perfectly, inside her living room, and pulls Shaun inside before he has a chance to protest. She tells him, almost mechanically, what’s been happening to her for the past 526 loops, and how she’s about to undergo a procedure that might fix her - but also might kill her.

Something tells her that she won’t get another chance at this. 

Shaun takes it all in with about as much grace as he can. Which is to say that he’s sitting down on the console room floor when it’s over, looking like he’s struggling to breathe. 

Donna falls silent once she’s done explaining. Shaun somehow manages a shaky smile, looks up at her, and says, “Okay. I’ll be here.”

Donna loves him. She loves him so much that it hurts, and she feels herself letting go of one of the fears that has plagued her this entire time - the fear that she would have to hide herself from him once this is all over, that their marriage would turn into a lie. Now she knows she doesn’t have to, and it becomes a little easier to breathe. 

“Wait for me,” she says. Begs, really.

He nods. 

* * *

The rest of it wraps up rather neatly, if she’s being honest with herself. As though it’s just another adventure with the Doctor. 

The procedure is excruciating, but successful. The Doctor tows the wayward spaceship away from Earth, ensuring that Exeter is undisturbed. And time doesn’t reset itself after 3:02 AM, leaving Donna to wonder just how much the loop was dependent on her. Somehow, Earth’s place in time hasn’t ripped a hole in the universe. 

It’s not a mystery that she’s able to wrap her brain around. Not anymore. 

They’ve parked the TARDIS out in the countryside, on top of the hill that Donna likes to use to stargaze. She’s still shaking, but from good old-fashioned exhaustion this time, as opposed to too much adrenaline. Shaun’s standing next to her with his arm around her, and there’s no judgment, no hesitation from him. 

They’re watching the sun rise.

“It’s like everything’s reset,” Donna whispers. “But not really.”

Shaun’s always been patient with her. He’s waiting now, not speaking until she indicates she’s finished.

“I don’t know how to go back,” she says. “But I don’t - I don’t want to travel with him, anymore. I can’t. If that’s the price again, I -”

She stops, swallows. In her head, she hears,  _ You need to be careful. Because you know the Doctor - he’s wonderful, he’s... brilliant. But he’s like fire. Stand too close and people get burned. _

“Being near him doesn’t scare me,” she whispers. “But I almost  _ became  _ him, and I don’t want that. I don’t. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. Including him.”

Shaun presses a kiss to her hair. Donna doesn’t think he quite understands, but that’s okay. That’s not what she needs from him. They both know that.

* * *

It’s a Saturday, but she knows that he doesn’t really leave the campus anymore, and she knows that Bill hasn’t been taken on a trip today. Donna makes her way through the deserted building where his office is, passing empty lecture halls and reveling in the fact that she’s finally living through a day that’s new. 

She knocks on his office door, unsure if she should expect an answer.

“Come in,” he calls.

Donna takes a deep, steadying breath, then steps inside. 

He’s seated behind his desk, with his ridiculous sonic glasses on his face. Donna takes a long look around; she was always either dying or too high on adrenaline to really look at this space that he’s made his own. For a moment, she’s tempted to ask about the photographs, but she holds herself back.

“Thought I’d come and visit,” she says. “I’ll probably do that every week or so. I know you won’t be around forever.”

He stares at her for a few moments, his expression unreadable. “You’re always welcome,” he says. “Don’t suppose you’d fancy a trip?”

Donna shakes her head. “I can’t go back,” is all she says. “I don’t think you can either.”

The Doctor doesn’t answer, but she sees a flicker of the truth in his eyes. 

Donna sinks into the chair in front of his desk, keeping eye contact with him. “I just came to say,” she begins, “that I... I hate what you did to me. But I understand why you did it.”

The Doctor doesn’t look away from her. “And I understand why it hurt so much, for you. But I can’t regret it.”

Those two truths hang in the air between them, and then they’re gone. Donna feels like it’s a little easier to breathe, and she smiles. 

“Come get a coffee with me,” she says, jerking her head at the door. “You shouldn’t be cooped up in here like this, all day. Live a little.”

“Coffee!” he exclaims, his face twisting in disgust. “Eugh. Elixir of the gods, some might say - more like the elixir from hell.”

But he stands up from behind his desk, and they leave the office together.

* * *

“Was it worth it?”

The woman watches as the Doctor and Donna make their way across campus, bickering good-naturedly with each other. 

“Maybe,” she answers. “I hope so.”

There’s a moment of silence, then: “We can’t stay here.”

Clara Oswald turns around and smiles. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is curious - the 'ghost' that Donna saw at the beginning was Clara. The Time Lord part of Donna was still there at the time, and even without her memories it only took one look at Clara to realize that Clara was 'wrong' (AKA frozen in time just before the moment of her death).


End file.
